On the motion to set up supply in, the House
of Commons on Friday week, Lord Carmarthen moved a resolution declaring that the accidents caused by the indiscriminate carrying of pistols and revolvers call for immediate legislation. The evil, he declared, was growing. The inquests "in such cases" were 139 in 1890, 180 in 1891, and 217 in 1892. Mr. Asquith agreed as to the necessity for legislation, but could not promise a Bill unless he were guaranteed against the opposition offered to his Pistols Bill of last year. The House next turned to the incidence of taxation, and Mr. Bartley tried to draw the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject of the Income-tax, by showing how hardly that tax bore upon incomes derived from trades and professions. Sir William Harcourt, however, refused to be drawn. In vain, he told Mr. Bartley, was the net set in the sight of any bird. He went on, however, to say (which is true) that though there is a hardship in not differentiating the tax according to its sources, it is practically impossible to get rid of that hardship. That was proved by Mr. Gladstone in 1853 and in 1861 by a committee, on which sat Mr. Lowe and Sir Stafford Northcote. The tone thus adopted seems to indicate pretty clearly that Sir William Harcourt may be going to graduate, but that he will not differentiate.
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